The Forgotten Fire Bird of Castle Greyhawk

I haven't blogged in awhile, but I've still been spending a lot of my time on D&D-related things. I recently had an experience I simply have to share. I got a hold of some obscure and fascinating records from early TSR, honest-to-goodness RPG buried treasure.

Behold, the Alicanto, AKA Gary Gygax's "Dresden Bird":

Allow me to elaborate.

The Differences in Mystara, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms (Part 4)

You may have thought that we had wrapped this up sufficiently, but I think we could benefit from
more than just looking at each setting individually. The points of overlap can sometimes also be interesting, and I can think of some more game-able stuff that'll apply to these. Which I realize may seem to run counter to what I said previously.

In a sense, wouldn't the best way to satisfy our goal of making each setting feel really, really distinct be to downplay what they have in common? Like, try to not step on each others' toes if you can help it. Especially for those points that technically overlap. Yes, all three of these settings has furry races. But Mystara is the one that really leans into it, so if you're doing one of the other two settings then maybe you should go out of your way to avoid furry races so as not to steal Mystara's thunder.

But any way in which they can be made distinct from the rules of default D&D is an opportunity to capitalize on.

The Differences in Mystara, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms (Part 3)

I'm going to be upfront about this: this is not going to be a very positive article. In seeking to answer the question of this series (see title), I... just don't have much good to say about the Forgotten Realms. Maybe some FR superfans can come in and help me out but I feel like a lot of the obstacles in this article will serve to illustrate some of my more important arguments about setting and worldbuilding.

Forgotten Realms

So let's get into it. What are the main features that characterize FR in contrast against Greyhawk and Mystara?

1. ... Uh ... Well...
2. What does the Wikipedia article talk about? That should give us an idea of the most important stuff. Let's see...
3. ...Uhhhh. Uh oh.

The Differences in Mystara, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms (Part 2)

Picking up where we left off, we'll continue to identify all of the "greatest hits" of the three default campaign settings. We found Mystara, most associated with Basic D&D, to be a realm of exciting locations, potential for immortalized achievement, and waifus (furry and non-furry options available).

Greyhawk

In contrast, let's talk about Greyhawk, the default setting of AD&D and Gary's own creation. Perhaps my favorite official campaign setting, here are the standout qualities to me. I find this one to be the most distinct of the three. It's also, to me, the easiest to envision mechanical structures to reinforce its qualities through gameplay:

1. Sword and Sorcery, full stop. Gotta go hard in this direction. Magic is rare, powerful, and corrupting, morals and grey grey grey, people are selfish, there are no great and grand kingdoms anymore, etc.

• I think a lot of people still picture "sword and sorcery" involving deserts somehow because of Conan the Barbarian fighting desert snake cults and Dark Sun and Barsoom and, to an extent, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. When Lieber described the setting outside Lankhmar itself, he wrote, "think of Saracens, Arabs, Parthians, Assyrians even. They ride the camel and elephant, and use the bow extensively." In any case, while there are deserts in the Flaeness, you would have to be able to pretty extensively envision Sword and Sorcery without it. Which really just means...

The Differences in Mystara, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms (Part 1)

D&D is a chance to share a world with people. So after an adventure, you probably want your players to remember the setting it took place it. The experience of being transported to that world is usually one of the important takeaways DMs want to instill in their audience. But unless your players are completely new to all fantasy fiction entirely (e.g. no real exposure to things like elves, wizards, dragons, orcs, etc.) then the baseline assumptions of D&D’s “implied setting” aren’t going to have that impact you’re looking for. You have to go a step beyond to make them feel the world as an element of the story.

Navette (or Marquise) Story Structure

(Firstly, the culture around jewelry and precious stones is kind of stupid. Anyway...)

I want to tell you about a structural tool I find extremely useful, but it is slightly more advanced than a lot of other DMing advice out there. I think a lot of my stuff is. This blog isn't a 100 or 200 level course, it's a 300 or 400 level course, so I usually assume you've already done a lot of the basic readings (you know, Dungeoncraft 101, Metagaming 150, Player Types 210, Random Encounters 215, etc). Most of the stuff that Matt Colville would have made a video about or the Angry GM would write about, I assume you're familiar with. So I want to take a very basic concept and start deconstructing it: Railroads vs. Sandboxes.